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Vito Corleone
Vito Andolini Corleone (born Vito Andolini in Corleone, Province of Palermo, Sicily, Italy) is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather and in Francis Ford Coppola's first two films, where he was portrayed by Marlon Brando in The Godfather and, as a young man, by Robert De Niro in The Godfather Part II. Vito Corleone appears more prominently in the first movie, in wich he is portrayed by the acclaimed, late and great actor Marlon Brando, he also appears in the second movie in flashbacks as a young man (portrayed by the academy award winning Robert De Niro.) Vito Corleone is considered the main protagonist behind the first Godfather novel and film, behind his son Michael Corleone, who is the Main protagonist of The Godfather franchise. Premiere Magazine listed Vito Corleone as the greatest film character in history.1 He was also selected as the 10th greatest film character by Empire.2 Character overview Vito Corleone is the head of the Corleone crime family – the most powerful Mafia family in New York City. He is depicted as an ambitious Sicilian immigrant who moves to the Lower East Side of Manhattan and builds a Mafia empire. Upon his death at the end of the novel, his youngest son, Michael, succeeds him as the head of the Corleone family. Vito has two other sons, Santino ("Sonny") and Frederico ("Fredo" or "Freddie"), as well as a daughter, Connie, all of whom play major roles in the story. He also informally adopts Sonny's friend, Tom Hagen, who later becomes a lawyer and the Family's consigliere. While he oversees a business founded on gambling, bootlegging, and union corruption, he is known as a generous man who lives by a strict moral code of loyalty to friends and, above all, family. At the same time, he is known as a traditionalist who demands respect commensurate with his status; even his closest friends refer to him as "Godfather" or "Don Corleone" rather than "Vito". Vito prides himself on being careful and reasonable, but he is nevertheless willing to use violence when he thinks it is necessary. When his godson, singer Johnny Fontane, wants to get out of a contract with a bandleader, Vito offers to buy out the contract. When rebuffed, Vito threatens to kill the bandleader unless he releases Johnny for a token amount. Later, when movie mogul Jack Woltz refuses to give Johnny a role in a film, Vito has one of Woltz's prize horses killed and the horse's severed head placed in Woltz's bed. Early years (childhood, to adulthood in america) The novel establishes Vito's backstory, which is also portrayed in The Godfather Part II. Vito was born in the small town of Corleone, Sicily, on December 7, 1891. Antonio Andolini, his father, was murdered by the local Mafia boss, Don Ciccio, for refusing to pay tribute to him. His older brother, Paolo, swore revenge, but he too was murdered soon afterwards. Eventually, Ciccio's henchmen come to the Andolini family's home to kill Vito. In desperation, Vito's mother takes her son to see Ciccio and begs him to spare Vito. Ciccio refuses, reasoning that Vito will also seek revenge as an adult. Upon Ciccio's refusal, Vito's mother puts a knife to his throat, allowing her son to escape while she is killed. Later that night, he is smuggled away, fleeing from Sicily to seek refuge in America on a cargo ship full of immigrants. In the film, he is renamed "Vito Corleone" because the immigration workers atEllis Island mistake "Andolini" for his middle name and the name of his hometown for his last name. According to The Godfather Part II, he later adopts the middle name "Andolini" to acknowledge his heritage. In the book, he himself makes the choice to take up the name of his village Corleone as a sign of respect to his origins. Vito is later adopted by the Abbandando family in Little Italy on the Lower East Side and he befriends their son, Genco, who becomes like a brother to him. Vito begins making an honest living at the Abbandando family's grocery store on Ninth Avenue, but the elder Abbandando is forced to fire him when Don Fanucci, a blackhander and the local neighborhood padrone, demands that the grocery hire his nephew. A young Vito (played by Robert De Niro) kills Don Fanucci During this time, Vito befriends Peter Clemenza and Salvatore Tessio, who teach him to survive and prosper through petty crime and performing favors in return for loyalty. In 1920, he commits his first murder: killing Fanucci, who had threatened to turn him, Clemenza and Tessio over to the police unless he got a cut of their illegal profits. Vito chooses the day of a major Italian festival to spy on Fanucci from the rooftops as Fanucci goes home, and surprises him at the door to his apartment. He shoots Fanucci three times, as the din from the festival and the towel he had wrapped around the gun as a makeshift silencer drowns out the noise from the gunshots. Vito then takes over the neighborhood, treating it with far more respect than Fanucci had. As a young man, Vito starts an olive oil importing business, Genco Pura (simply known as Genco Olive Oil in the films), with his friend Genco. Over the years he uses it as a legal front for his growing organized crime syndicate. Nevertheless, Genco Pura is highly successful and grows to become the largest olive oil importing company in the nation. Between Genco Pura and his illegal operations, Vito becomes a very wealthy man. In the mid-1920s, he returns to Sicily for the first time since fleeing as a child. He and his partner Don Tommasino begin systematically eliminating all of Don Ciccio's men who had a hand in murdering his family. They set up a meeting with the aging Don Ciccio himself, during which Vito kills him by carving his stomach open, thus avenging his family. By the early 1930s, Vito Corleone has organized his illegal operations into the Corleone crime family. Abbandando becomes his consigliere, with Clemenza and Tessio as caporegimes. It is soon reckoned as the most powerful crime family in the nation. Later, his oldest son Santino (nicknamed "Sonny") becomes a capo as well, and eventually his underboss. Around 1939, he moves his base of operations to Long Beach, New York on Long Island. Main character arc In 1945, Vito refuses the request of Virgil Sollozzo to invest in a heroin operation and use his political contacts for the operation's protection. Vito believes that the politicians on his payroll would recoil at the prospect of providing cover for drug trafficking. At the meeting with Sollozzo, Sonny intimates that he is interested in the offer; after the meeting, Vito warns his son that he should never let anyone outside the family in on his thinking. Some time later, near Christmas, while on his way home, Vito crosses the street to buy oranges from a street vendor when two of Sollozzo's hitmen come out from the shadows with guns drawn. Vito tries to sprint back to his Cadillac, but he is shot five times before he can get to safety. His son Fredo fumbles with his gun and is unable to return fire as the attackers escape. Sollozzo finds out Vito survived, and makes a second attempt two weeks later. He has Mark McCluskey — a corrupt police captain on his payroll — throw the Don's bodyguards in jail and withdraw all police protection, leaving him unguarded. However, Michael comes to visit his father minutes before the attack is due to occur. Realizing that his father is in danger, Michael has a nurse help him move Vito to another room and pretends to stand guard outside the hospital. Michael, who before had wanted nothing to do with the "family business", reaffirms his loyalty at Vito's bedside. Vito's injuries incapacitate him for the next three months, during which time Sonny serves as acting head of the family. Michael persuades Sonny to allow him to avenge their father by killing Sollozzo and McCluskey himself. The plan goes through perfectly, and Michael is smuggled out of the United States and sent to Sicily to safety under Don Tomassino's protection. The killing of Sollozzo and McCluskey sparks off a major war between the Corleone and the Tattaglia Families, with the Five Families of New York backing the latter. After Sonny is killed by the Tattaglias, Vito assumes personal control again and brokers a major peace accord among the Families, confirming his suspicion in the process that Don Emilio Barzini, head of the Barzini Family, was the brains behind Sollozzo and the Tattaglia Family all along. The peace allows Vito to have Michael returned home in safety, and Vito installs him in the family business — something he had never wanted for his favorite son, who he had hoped would pursue a non-criminal lifestyle. Vito goes into semi-retirement after Michael marries his longtime girlfriend Kay Adams. Michael becomes operating head of the family, with Vito as an informal consigliere. He even supports Michael's long-term plans to remove the family from crime, though an early draft of the script suggests that it was actually Vito's idea. Michael sends Hagen to Las Vegas to act as the family's lawyer there and lay the groundwork for a planned move of most operations there after Vito's death. Clemenza and Tessio request permission to break off and form their own families in New York after the move to Las Vegas; Michael's bodyguards Al Neri and Rocco Lampone are chosen to be the future caporegimes of the family. Vito dies of a heart attack while playing with his grandson Anthony in his garden. His last words in the novel are, "Life is so beautiful." Vito's funeral is a grand affair, with all the other dons, capos and consiglieres in New York attending. Days before his death, Vito tells Michael that Barzini would set him up to be killed under cover of a meeting "to fix up things". Barzini would use a trusted member of the Corleone family as an intermediary, and that whoever came to Michael about the meeting with Barzini was a traitor. At the funeral, Tessio tells Michael that he could set up a meeting on his territory in Brooklyn, where Michael would presumably be safe. Michael concludes that Tessio is the traitor. A few days later, Michael orders the deaths of the other New York Dons, as well as Tessio. He also avenges Sonny's death by arranging the killing of Connie's abusive husband Carlo Rizzi, who "fingered" Sonny for the Tattaglias. Michael and Vito had begun planning this mass slaughter soon after Michael's return to the United States; in a last demonstration of Vito's cunning, they had deliberately allowed the Barzini-Tattaglia alliance to whittle away at their interests in order to lull them into inaction. 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